


she (for whom the bells toll)

by LizMikaelson



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 09:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18312638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizMikaelson/pseuds/LizMikaelson
Summary: “I was expecting your Dad,” Hope says.orHope Mikaelson saves the world.Lizzie Saltzman saves Hope.





	she (for whom the bells toll)

**Author's Note:**

> For all the amazing Hizzie writers out there, who are working so hard to provide all of us with amazing content. 
> 
> Full credit for the idea and the plot of this go to [ElizabethMikaelson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethMikaelson/pseuds/ElizabethMikaelson), so if you enjoy this, thank her by commenting on her wonderful work. And let's hope I did this idea justice.

The phone rings.

 

And she wouldn’t normally answer it, because her Dad and Hope are the only people who actually use that phone, but there’s something unnerving about the sound. And after today, and it might be- she reaches for the receiver.  


 

“Salvatore School.”

 

“Lizzie?”

 

“Hope?”

 

 

 

This is how the end begins:

 

 

 

“I was expecting your Dad,” Hope says.

 

And she sounds- different. Like she does not want to talk to Lizzie. Lizzie’s used to being second choice. She’s not used to it from Hope.

 

And where she would normally feel her confidence shattering, she feels alert, spidey-senses tingling. Something is off about this. Something is going on here.  


 

“Where are you?”

 

“I’m with Landon,” Hope says and Lizzie can hear her breathing. “Is Josie- did it work?”

 

“She’s fine,” Lizzie says.

 

“Good,” Hope says, “good” and she sounds relieved and more worried, all at once.

 

“She’s making a phone call to Europe,” Lizzie blurts out into the silence.

 

“To Europe?”

 

“I’m pretending she’s calling Mum.”

 

“I need to talk to your Dad,” Hope says and she sounds urgent, concerned.

 

“He’s on the phone with Mum.”

 

Hope laughs, throaty and a little watery, like maybe she’s been crying. Like maybe she still is. “I see your denial game is strong, Saltzman.”

 

“I’ll deal with that inevitability once I have to. Anyway, Dad’s confessing to Mum that he came up with a backup plan to steal our powers.”

 

“Are you okay?” Hope asks her like she's not calling from what's probably a battlefield, like Lizzie's feelings about her Dad's actions are everything that matter.  


 

“The fact that my father is scared of me is not exactly news to me. I’m probably half the reason that plan existed in the first place.”

 

Hope doesn’t bother with empty phrases, just sighs quietly into the phone. “I’m probably the other half, if that makes you feel better.”

 

Strangely enough, it does.

 

“People are complicated,” Hope adds and then makes a quiet, worried sound. Lizzie can almost hear her breathing. Recalibrating.

 

“Lizzie,” she finally says. “I need a favor.”

 

“Anything.”

 

“Call maintenance. Have them clean out my room. Find the files your Dad has about me. Burn them. And burn Landon’s journal. And mine.” Anything definitely does not cover that. Not even remotely.

 

“Sweetie,” Lizzie says, sinks down into her Dad’s chair, “put me on speaker and let me talk to your hobbit.”

 

Landon’s an annoying half-pint of dish mop hair, but he loves Hope. He’d tell her if she were planning something stupid.

 

“He’s a little indisposed right now.”

 

“Indisposed?”

 

“Dead.” There’s a moment of silence. “But- he’ll be fine. He'll wake up. Lizzie, can you please do all of that?”

 

“Hope Mikaelson,” she says in her best imitation of her mother, “tell me exactly what you’re planning right now or I am getting in a car and driving over there.”

 

The seconds pass before Hope sighs. “I’m- I’m the key,” she says. “My existence is the loophole. Clarke succeeded. He raised Malivore, but I can stop it. It was created by a witch, a vampire and a werewolf. And if I jump into the pit, I’ll stop it from rising.”

 

Her father’s books are flying off the walls, crashing against each other. Lizzie's world is crashing to pieces for the second time today.  


 

“What is that?” Hope asks.

 

Lizzie tries to answer, forces the words out. “My calm emotional reaction to your planned suicide.”

 

The window shatters.

 

That’s new.

 

Fun.

 

“Lizzy. Babe,” Hope says, and that’s also new. “I need you to breathe with me, okay. It’s okay. Just focus on me. Just breathe with me.”

 

And she can feel herself calming down slowly, listening to rhythm of Hope’s even breathing. Enough to object, at least. “That’s- don’t do that, Hope. This is the epitome of a bad plan.”

 

“No one will remember. If you make sure that no one does, everyone else gets to be fine. I finally understand why my father did what he did. And this way, my existence finally has a purpose.”

 

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

 

“What- excuse me?” And Hope sounds pissed. Good. Angry people don’t jump into mud pits.

 

“I mean, I only met him once, but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would in any way be on board with you dying. Or, you know, care about unleashing hell too much. He sacrificed himself so you could live, Hope, not so that you could do the same stupid thing he did to you to all of us.”

 

She hears a quiet half-sob through the phone and that almost shatters her, because she does not want to see Hope in pain. Or cause it. But she’s right, so she powers through.

 

“You saved Josie, Hope. And when I told you to come through with your heroics, I meant you, too. You saved my sister, Hope. Now save yourself.”

 

“I don’t know if I can.”

 

“I believe in you.”

 

“Start from the beginning,” she says, after several seconds of silence.

  
“I don’t have a lot of time left,” Hope objects.

 

“Talk fast,” she suggests, and is met with nothing but an eerie quiet. "I still need you," she blurts out, desperate and scared. "So you don't get to die on me. Now tell me what you know."  


 

“I’m the only one who can remember the people who end up in the pit. My blood saved Josie and destroyed the mud bullet inside of her. So if I jump, maybe I stop Malivore from rising.”

 

 

 

 

 

This is how it ends:

 

 

 

 

"Wait," Hope says, "I think I have an idea."

 

There is a bang, a clatter and a crash.

 

Lizzie feels her world spinning out of controls, breathes and breathes and waits for an answer.

 

"Hi," Hope says, almost cheerfully.

 

"Catch me up?" Lizzie says, and she wishes she were even remotely as calm as she sounds.

 

"I tossed Landon's creepy half-brother into the pit. With some of my blood. And I think it's working."

 

 

 

This is a new beginning:

 

“Please come home now.”

 

“Okay,” Hope promises. “Okay," she repeats. "I’m on my way.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
